What type of fuel does the X12A utilize? Is it cryogenic based solid fuel? Low pressure system or ppt? Is there any difference from X-11 COndore in terms of rocket design? IS the aerodynamics delta based for all Condore designs? Anti-spin is based on what type of tensor? Does it use adjusting cold thrusters? How much does battery weigh?

Finally my last idea was to illustrate the amount of dust found in the atmosphere. The dust plays a vital role in rocket hydrodynamics? Do you think there is any aspect of this associated with the X12A that differs from the X-11?

Hey Michael, The X-12A will have gas thrusters of that I am sure. There is still a lot of development work to do with the design based on what we learn from the X-11 and perhaps other later designations depending on the success of the coming mission in April.

I am very excited about the gas thruster development and will soon be pouring and cutting metal for the 8 thruster arrangement and doing some static testing with shop air.

What we learn there will determine a lot more of the design of the X-12A if we are very successful with the first flights of the X-11 we should be working on the X-12 before the end of next season.

Meanwhile we are looking at a particular mission to prove out the booster system. Stewart is working on that right now. However timing with the launch in April may be off so we will see. The FAA needs a good deal of information and I don't yet know how long that will take to get fully documented and then it's 60 to 180 days for approval.

Anyway you can expect full documentation for everything we do from here out because it's required by the FAA. I'm glad we have Joe and he's keeping the facts about it straight as the paperwork is now the limitation on our flight missions happening.

The team is now using TeamSpeak 3 for communications and it is really a great program with clear voice comms. Far better than Skype on quality and allows for a larger number of people to communicate at once.

It is a key factor in our being able to run Mission Control from multiple stations in multiple locations.

Every station has the same access to any console available at Mission Control and any station can be handed off to another at any time (this is not a team speak feature this is a feature of our mission control software).

It works great for everyday comms too and can bring your team closer together.

The team is now using TeamSpeak 3 for communications and it is really a great program with clear voice comms. Far better than Skype on quality and allows for a larger number of people to communicate at once.

It is a key factor in our being able to run Mission Control from multiple stations in multiple locations.

Every station has the same access to any console available at Mission Control and any station can be handed off to another at any time (this is not a team speak feature this is a feature of our mission control software).

The chat is useful too for sending URLs which become clickable.

Would you mind explaining this part Monroe? (see below)

Monroe wrote:

Every station has the same access to any console available at Mission Control and any station can be handed off to another at any time (this is not a team speak feature this is a feature of our mission control software).

Ok this should give you a good idea of what mission control looks like. I took some quick screen shots of an earlier version we where using. (being the new version runs on linux and is networked and a bit more styled for our use) but it's basically the same in look and function.

If I load these photos correctly in order lol. The first one is the main console for telemetry and current status as well as control of the craft.

The second is the main board that shows mission progress

The third is x-plane console showing a 3d render of the craft viewable from different angles

the rest are optical tracking shots that also use GPS if the craft is out of optical range (for antenna pointing) finder main tracking and the last one is a stabilized image for video feed.

There are several other consoles possible for different sub sections of telemetry and there are several video feeds so thats why we need everyone to be able to be involved anywhere they are.

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post._________________Today's the day! We go into Space!

Thanks Josh! This all goes live onto the internet threw our Livestream! So we will be inviting everyone to watch our missions LIVE! Right now we are trying to set up some simulated missions for team practice as X-Plane can simulate the entire mission based on our hardware and software in the loop.

So we can simulate with hardware any mission we choose. It should be a lot of fun watching us try and coordinate full missions in real time live.

Yes, we will be doing both with all our missions from now on. Both simulated and live. We have to practice with the simulated missions first. That way when we do the real missions everyone knows what to do and is comfortable in their positions.

It will also let us work out any bugs in either system before we do the actual live mission.

It will be necessary for sure outside the atmosphere. It's not nearly as much an issue for the X-11. Because the X-11 can dive and pick up speed for stabilization before the rocket motor is fired. The X-12 wont have the advantage of atmosphere until it reenters.

The gas system will insure stability as well because it's boosters are short burn solids. Even the planed N boosters are short duration, guidance only works for the boosters during boost.